While all of that played out in Tang Ze's head, out in the real world, Elder He Xuan could only watch helplessly as the Asura Emperor exited the pocket dimension. He was most certainly not its match when it came to physical capabilities, and he could not use any of his special skills here. Not that he thought that they would be of much hope against something as powerful as it.
What was going on? Elder He Xuan couldn't understand it, one moment, Tang Ze had been charging towards the asura, looking like he was about to kill it and that victory was close at hand, and the next, Tang Ze was sprawled out on the ground.
Tang Ze was not moving at all as if he had been hit with some kind of paralysis technique - but that couldn't be it as this secret realm suppressed those kinds of techniques.
Elder He Xuan might've even thought that Tang Ze was dead were it not for the fact that his chest was still moving.
But what happened? Why had Tang Ze collapsed like he had been conked on the head?
Elder He Xuan ran over to him, examining Tang Ze for injuries. "Tang Ze... wait… this is!"
A heart demon! Elder He Xuan felt it as he felt Tang Ze's Qi fluctuating wildly.
Techniques could not be used in this secret realm to any major extent, but heart demons were creatures that lived within a cultivator's own mind.
Even in such a place, they were fully capable of assaulting a cultivator from within.
Elder He Xuan knew several techniques that could help Tang Ze right now, but unfortunately none of them would work in his place.
Should he take Tang Ze outside? While that would make it easier for Elder He Xuan to deal with the heart demon, the heart demon itself might become more powerful as it would be able to use any special skills it had once they were no longer suppressed. He quickly dismissed the idea.
Instead, Elder He Xuan put a hand on Tang Ze's shoulder, and tried to reach his consciousness with his own. At this close distance, it should be possible for him to do so. This secret realm greatly suppressed techniques, but it could not negate them completely. Such a weak ability at this distance should still be able to make its mark.
This was not just a skill, as it was, but also a meditative technique that he had learned but unfortunately had little mastery of. He had learned of this once in a monastery back when he had just been a Golden Core cultivator, and he had little need to familiarize himself with it, or so he thought at the time.
Tang Ze had thoughts of resisting the heart demon, but they were almost instantly extinguished. Any happy thoughts that he tried to clutch onto slipped from his mind as if they were coated in oil. Try as he might, his mind could not escape the quagmire that the heart demon had trapped him in.
Tang Ze, as he wallowed in despair; a prisoner within his own mind, heard a voice calling out to him. "Tang Ze! Listen to me! You must get up!"
It was Elder He Xuan's voice.
The heart demon scowled, its already malformed face turning even uglier. "Old man... stay out of this!"
But it wasn't just Elder He Xuan's voice that Tang Ze heard.
From somewhere deep in the recesses of his mind, a spark was ignited.
Tang Ze found that he could now move his body somewhat.
Tang Ze turned his head see that his brother was there - who looked just like he had back in that classroom when Tang Ze had used the Grimoire of Heaven. "My brother is the coolest!" this younger version of Tang Jun said yet again, though this time he didn't say it to the teacher, but to Tang Ze. A broad smile graced his face while he held up the drawing he had made before Tang Ze.
The drawing of the two of them together...
The young version of Tang Jun then turned to the heart demon. "Hey you! Leave my brother alone!"
Tang Jun might have appeared miniscule before the creature, but the heart demon cowed like a deer before the roaring of a lion at these words.
The spark within Tang Ze's mind began to intensify.
Was this memory of Tang Jun something that the Grimoire of Heaven had planted deep within Tang Ze's mind on purpose when he had used it, knowing that he would need it in the future? It was not powerful enough to directly deal with a heart demon this strong, but the seeds to Tang Ze's eventual salvation were planted at the time.
"Yeah!"
"Get out of his head!"
Other voices echoed from behind him, that of Zhang Long, Jin Zhen, Yin Tiang, and Chen Yu.
"How could you call him worthless after all he's done?" Zhang Long and Jin Zhen intoned.
"Nah, the only worthless thing is you," Yin Tian said to the heart demon.
"I second that," Chen Yu said, glaring at the heart demon. "Scum that only feeds on the misery of other people. You're an eyesore - get lost!"
These voices though, they were something else entirely and Tang Ze didn't think that they originated from the Grimoire of Heaven - could they be formed from the strength of the bonds he had formed all this time while in this world?
The spark that was ignited by the grimoire soon turned into a raging fire, fueled by Elder He Xuan's help and Tang Ze's newfound resolution to fight.
A brilliant light burst through the darkness, and Tang Ze gazed up to see the shining faces of his mother and father smiling down at him, their faces as radiant and glorious as the sun itself.
"Remember, we will always love you," came their voices. There was not a shred of judgment or hatred within them. They did not need to say that they did not hold anything else against him, nor did they need to say that they had forgiven him, because the words 'we will always love you' already encompassed those sentiments and so much more.
And like that, the darkness vanished completely. The heart demon withered away until nothing remained of it.
Tang Ze woke up then, having finally broken free from his heart demon's clutches. "What happened?"
"Tang Ze, are you alright?" Elder He Xuan asked as Tang Ze slowly got up.
"Yeah, I'm fine," Tang Ze said. He felt like his head was about to explode, but without the heart demon affecting him, he remembered the urgency of the situation. "What was that though? What happened to the asura?"
"You were attacked by a heart demon," Elder He Xuan said, and then swore. Tang Ze jumped back, not used to Elder He Xuan of all people using profanity. Upon seeing his confusion, Elder He Xuan explained in a few short lines what a heart demon was, and what had just happened while Tang Ze had blacked out. "Your heart must've been waiting for the right chance to strike all this time while curled up in your heart, and that it did. It struck at the worst possible time, and that allowed that asura to escape."
"Let's go after it then," Tang Ze said.
Meanwhile, the Asura Emperor roared in triumph as it emerged in the outside world.
It had fought with the Myonglites (that was the actual name of the people who had ruled the Mercury Kingdom - a name which had been lost to time) many hundreds of thousands of years ago, though that time span naturally felt far shorter to it, who had been in that secret realm and subject to its time dilation.
It had been the strongest of the asuras, though once the humans were able to seal it away, unbeknownst to it, they had defeated the rest of the asuras and then slaughtered them to extinction.
The people of the Mercury Kingdom had created that secret realm specifically to seal away their strongest enemy. That was why there was no message when one stepped into it, because they did not want to alert any asura who might happen to walk in that this was the place where their leader was being imprisoned.
They had written such using one of the scripts that only they knew very clearly around the stone being used to keep it in check - they had no idea that several hundreds of thousands of years later someone would come in and out of pure curiosity (mistakenly thinking that there was treasure) release the Asura Emperor during one of the periods where it had to open up to the outside world to absorb Qi in order to maintain its structural integrity!
They had likely planned to set up other measures around the Asura Emperor's prison, but those who had set it up had died in the subsequent fighting and as such, the secret realm was lost even to them after the war was over. Their caution turned out to be the cause of this current predicament!
The Asura Emperor did not know all of these details, he assumed that they were still at war with the Myonglites, and immediately set about finding the rest of its brethren. It had been in a state of partial hibernation while in the secret realm during which his sense of time had been muddled. To top it off he also did not know how time flowed between the secret realm and the outer world, so even if he had some crude estimate he knew that it would not be reliable.
With a thought, dark wings sprouted from his shoulders.
Yes, he thought to himself, they would rain fire and acid down upon the humans until they were wiped out! Then the entire land mass would belong to the asuras. Then, they would build up their strength, and when they were ready, finally wage war against heaven and usurp Indra from his throne!
Indrasan - the legendary throne of Indra, to seize it was the Asura Emperor's ultimate aim!
The reason they had fought with the Myonglites in the first place was because a seer of theirs had sacrificed several thousand years of his lifespan much like Xian Yue had done to get an answer to the question, 'How can we defeat the suras and take the throne of Indra for ourselves?'
To this, they had gotten the answer that if they conquered all of the human realm first, then they would have the greatest possibility in successfully deposing Indra!
The Asura Emperor had not realized as of yet that the war he had fought in had ended so long ago that no proper records of it remained, nor did he know that he was now the lone survivor of his kind.
If he did find that out, his anger would be multiplied a thousand times over, and he would erupt upon the unknowing populace of the Raswatian Empire. With his lifelong goal now unattainable, he would vent out his frustrations upon whoever he came across. If he could not have the world - then he would burn the world down!
Rivers of blood would flow as none of them would be able to stop him, with everyone in the Raswatian Empire being unable to even comprehend where he had come from in the first place or why he was attacking them.
As he was about to begin his futile attempt to search for the other asuras, Tang Ze and Elder He Xuan both burst forth from the secret realm.